And it's possible that I'm just as pleased with this envelope as usual since the quality was mostly concentrated on the Michigan PCs, which is my preference anyway! Here's all the great stuff I get to show off this time:
Up first: basketball, and some recent guys at that. It sounds a bit funny to refer to Crawford as "recent" but, hey, dude's still playing! THJ, LeVert, and Sauce Castillo all at least played in Ann Arbor within the past decade. By the way, all four guys you see above were first round picks.
As was this guy, German star Moe Wagner. I'm happy to get my first hit of the big man in the form of a jersey from last year's Hoops product in a set called Rise N Shine Memorabilia, a name I know they've used before. Hopefully he'll be starring for the Lakers before I know it!
The football bunch ended up being a group of nine, perfect for scanning purposes. Super Bowl-bound QB Tom Brady starts us off on a beautiful 2018 Classics base, one of Panini's best offerings. 2018 champ Brandon Graham is next on a rare base appearance that isn't from his rookie year, and I'm curious to see what his next move is. Severely underdrafted DL Maurice Hurst follows on a great four-spot: his 2018 Leaf Draft base and All American insert plus RCs from Panini's Luminance and Rookies and Stars. I'm loving the focus on college action here.
Then there's a great 2017-18 one-two punch starring Jabrill Peppers: a rookie year Score Gold Zone parallel (#29/50) plus last year's Donruss Optic. Doug is now responsible for three excellent Peppers cards from the former, including another parallel plus an autograph!
And then a very cool vintage surprise sews up the gridiron portion: a 1963 Topps CFL base (in very nice condition!) of QB/RB Bob Ptacek. After his three-year Michigan career in the late 50s he was drafted by the Browns, spent a year with them, then headed off to six seasons with the pictured Saskatchewan Roughriders. Doug's gifted me with a few cool CFL issues and this is definitely one of the best!
As usual the hockey portion was the largest, and like the TMV version you'll see a ton of 2009-10 and 18-19 O-Pee-Chee, which I'm definitely down with, especially since I really like the design of the former. I decided to have fun this time and separate these out in a scan I like to call "Hockey Mikes", the name of one of my favorite tags to use on this blog; I count at least six in my collection and you see four of them here.
And now I may have to create a new tag for "Hockey Andrews" because there's three alone right here (plus one or two "Andy"s not seen here). Glendening got a double-dip as a Wing and appeared in this evening's other post. And I'll take hockey John Madden over the Ace/Tinactin guy any day!
The Miller card leading off here was of interest to me because he played for four years in Ann Arbor starting in 2005, so it's possible I saw him play in a few games but can't remember him. PC favorite Morrison makes another appearance, as does one of many hockey players from my hometown of Livonia, David Moss. And the UD Nystrom (and its excellent photo) was a nice surprise since he's one of Doug's fellow 2/14 babies.
And here's an excellent pair of hits--the cream of the quality crop--to end things for today. First up is a sick-nasty patch of Swedish chef Carl Hagelin courtesy of 2012-13 Limited and numbered to just 10. It's a beautiful patch from a Rangers jersey and a nice upgrade on another Hagelin I believe Doug sent me--a jersey version of the same card. No surprise there, though, since my Canadian trading buddy has sent me some of my best Hagelins (and hockey hits in general).
#2 is another collection newbie: C David Wohlberg. The South Lyon native (a bit north of me here in Ann Arbor) played four seasons for Michigan starting in 2008-09, and while he never made it to the NHL, unlike Miller above I do remember Wohlberg a bit, likely because he put up a nice number of points over his four years. As always, kudos to Doug for turning up another new Wolverine for my PC, this time in the form of a 2014-15 Upper Deck AHL Box Set auto.
Doug, many thanks for this great start to trading between us in 2019! I have a few things set aside for you already and will aim for sending something back your way in time for your birthday, especially since I know you have some COMC goodies for me.
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